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speedily. Again, the providence of God limits and restrains the sins of men. "The remainder of wrath thou wilt restrain." God said to Sennacherib, "Because thy rage against me is come up into my ears, therefore I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back." Besides, it overrules and disposes the sins of men to good ends. It is said that Napoleon once heard it remarked that "man proposes, but God disposes," and he replied: "Ah! but I propose and dispose too." How did he dispose? Poor mortal! could he stand against God's providence?

The providence of God, so vast, so intricate, so uniform, so mysterious, is amazing. It staggers thought; it is an idea that overwhelms one; it is too bright to look at steadily; too high for us to comprehend. Under this sovereign and universal providence of God we live and are free; man does as he chooses; and God does as he pleases. The facts are clear, and beyond these facts we can not go.

II. The practical benefits of the doctrine of God's providence have, to some extent, been brought to view in the progress of this exhibition of the doctrine itself. Let us consider some of them more particularly.

1. The cordial reception of this doctrine leads the believer to honor God by trusting him. We are sometimes in trouble and distress; we are perplexed; we can not see the end. All is dark. Things around us seem to be entangled in a Gordian knot. We may be tempted to cut the knot by the hand of a heartless infidelity; tempted, perhaps, to turn the cold sharp edge of the scalpel of modern science against Christianity, and sever the world from its Maker. But this will not extricate us, nor in the least relieve our trouble. God can solve the difficulty. He sees it all; his wisdom is in it all; his love will shine in it all.

"God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain."

Thus the prophet Isaiah says: "Who is among you that feareth the Lord, that obeyeth the voice of my servant, that walketh in darkness and hath no light: let him trust in the name of the Lord, and stay himself upon his God." God means to have us trust him. This is the life of religion, as the confidence of man in man is the life of business and commercial affairs. When men have lost confidence in each other, the exchanges are interrupted, trade stops, and business is paralyzed. So where confidence in God is wanting, there is no prayer, no worship, no communion with him. The wonderful measures which God has adopted for our redemption by the death of Christ, were intended to commend his love to us, and win our trust in him. God is honored by the confidence of men. Here is stable ground of trust. Amidst the

vicissitudes and alternations of human affairs, you feel, perhaps, helpless and forsaken. But lift up your eyes from these on-goings of mortal scenes. What will you say concerning Him who is the witness and controller of it all? Should it not be enough to say: "God has so arranged it. To him are owing all this variety and vicissitude, and yet all this uniformity and order?" You see the plant now; you know not what kind of flower and fruit it will vield. And is it not enough that he so wills it? Shall the thing formed say to Him that formed it: "Why hast thou made me thus?" God has not only made every thing, but there is a beauty in his arrangement; where all is fortuitous to our view, but all is foreseen and ordered in his sight. "He hath made every thing beautiful in its time." That must be beautiful which to infinite love and wisdom seems best; all must be good which is the outworking of a purpose so good and wise that it can not be changed for the better. Therefore trust God at all times.

2. This doctrine brings to the believer satisfying comfort. Earthly possessions are very uncertain and unsatisfactory in their nature. They are preserved with care and anxiety. And after enduring all that care and anxiety, you may find your security far less than you had fancied. Man's heart can not repose with much comfort on a good so frail and so little adapted to satisfy his nature. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and you shall find rest. You have fears and trials which harass your weak spirit and bring disquietude. You want an antidote. Here is the remedy proposed by Jesus Christ: "Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me."

Man is born unto trouble. Sometimes it is upon one, then upon another; deep calleth unto deep; wave after wave. Sometimes affliction, sad bereavement comes into your house, and makes it dark and desolate. Sometimes calamity sweeps over a nation, and the whole community feel hard pressed by the general distress. We have not much strength to bear trouble. We are soon cast down and broken-hearted. But he who has faith in God's providence has comfort. He is not like the stoic. The stoic philosopher bore it, because he believed he must, and that it was manly to make the best of it. The Christian bears it because he believes that God will make it work for his good.

We are apt to feel strong in our prosperity, and many are content to trust to "luck," and "chance," and "fortune," as the world call it. But when these fail them, as sooner or later they will fail, and the evil days come, what resource have they left? Where is their comfort then? Their irreligion exposes them to be left friendless and lost forever, and to mourn at the last: "How have I hated instruction." Truly they are "without God, having no hope in the world."

Make God your refuge, and you will find a most secure abode.

Then, come trouble, come disease, come panic, come distress of nations, come death, you can smile at it and say: "The Lord is my light and my salvation: whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life: of whom shall I be afraid?" This is the way to fortify the heart against trouble. Confidence in God's providence is the indispensable condition of abiding comfort.

3. Another practical benefit of this doctrine is, that it represses violence and fretfulness of spirit, and produces a meek and gentle disposition. There are many important circumstances and events, the reason of which will probably remain to the end of time inscrutable; many that disappoint our hopes, and cross our wishes, and provoke our resentment. Such are, for instance, the depression of the righteous, the success of fraud and violence, the frustration of the efforts of benevolence and philanthropy, the prevalence of persecution, the mystery of iniquity spread over a large part of Christendom, and the extent to which wrong and vice afflict the world. We are in danger of contracting a harsh and acrimonious temper. We see some setting their mouth against the heavens, and dishonoring Christ by propagating fatal errors; and we feel as the disciples did, when they said: "Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, as Elias did ?" On the side of the oppressor is power. We behold wickedness in the place of judgment, and spreading its arms like the green bay-tree. We ask : "Can it not be checked?" We meet with obstacles. We grow impatient. We lose our temper. This is wrong. "Fret not thyself because of evil-doers." Do what you can to reform men, and to get rid of the evils that curse the land. But do not give way to despondency, harshness, or vexation, because impediments oppose your progress, and the desired result is deferred. Commit your way to the Lord, and he shall bring it to pass. The Lord shall judge the righteous and the wicked. And if the wickedness of man works your personal injury, you need not take the matter into your own hands to avenge yourself. "Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord." He sees all. He will vindicate the cause of the injured and oppressed. His providence is a shelter where meekness and gentleness may sit down and wait for the issue. Only do your duty, and leave the result calmly and cheerfully with him.

4. Another practical benefit of the doctrine of providence is, that it shows the indispensable obligations of gratitude to God for every favor we enjoy. The apostle says that "every good gift and every perfect gift cometh down from the father of lights, with whom is no variableness, nor shadow of turning." He has preserved you, watched over you, and provided for you every blessing that you have enjoyed. Give daily thanks to him for the great and immeasurable blessings which have fallen to your lot. To no part of the world has he displayed more of the riches of

his goodness and mercy than to our nation. We have been eminently the children of his care and providence. He has given us blessings, temporal and spiritual, civil and religious, in great variety and extraordinary profusion. But alas! instead of giving him the gratitude and glory, which the riches of his goodness have merited, how have we abused them? How has our foolishness perverted our way? How has his goodness, instead of leading us to repentance, led us to impenitence and pride, unbelief and rebellion? Shall we think it strange when he visits such a nation with revulsion and disaster? He has reason to complain of us as he did of Israel: "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me." He asks us to return to him. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.

The doctrine of divine providence lays the only true foundation of prayer, and is the great encouragement to Christian exertions.

SERMON XXII.

THE SUFFERINGS

O F

CHRIST.*

"BUT rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Chris's sufferings. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ.'-1 PETER, 4:13 and 2 CORINTHIANS, 1: 5.

THE religion of Christ is not designed to give quiet and ease in this world. There remaineth a rest for the people of God. This is a world of conflict, of labor, of self-denial, and of suffering; and that will render the rest more delightful. Our fallen, ruined condition makes suffering an element of earthly life, and the plan of restoration makes suffering or sorrow an element of recovery.

There is a conflict between sin and holiness, between Satan and Christ, for the possession of the human heart. And as the human subject is a moral being, the success of the struggle depends much on the decisions of the moral agent. If he yields to the seductions of Satan, and the leanings of a wicked heart, and the allurements of the world, he continues a subject of sin, and hence of misery. If he submits to the will of Christ, and the strivings of the Holy Spirit, and the promptings of his better judgment,

• We regret not to find the name of the author of this able and instructive discourse on the manuscript.-ED. NATIONAL PREACHER.

he receives Christ into his heart, and becomes free from the dominion of sin; though while in the flesh, he must carry on the strug gle, until the depraved heart is wholly purified, and is made like the holy in heaven. Whatever may be the choice of man as a moral agent, there will be conflict and suffering, though the final results will be very different.

Choosing Christ, and living in obedience to him, conflict, and self-denial, and suffering, will be the law of life; but the result will be peace, joy, felicity. In this life, Christians are called to be partakers of his suffering; because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps. The disciple is not greater than his Master. And if Christ suffered in providing salvation, the disciple must expect to suffer in attaining to its glorious blessings. If the Captain of our salvation was made perfect through sufferings, his under-officers and soldiers can not expect to overcome sin and Satan without partaking of his sufferings. The Scriptures, therefore, expressly inform us, that the disciples of Christ must suffer with their Lord and Master. "Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings."

I. Let us inquire, how Christians are partakers of the sufferings of Christ?

1st. By sympathy with him. There is an intimate connection between Christ and the renewed soul. His life is hid with Christ in God. There is a strong bond of sympathy uniting them. Christ is the bridegroom; his disciples are the bride, the Lamb's wife. He is the head; they are members of his body. The sympathetic tie is strong: what affects the one affects the other. Joy in one heart is transfused into the other. Sorrow filling the one oppresses the other.

The sufferings of his Lord on earth oft excite deep feelings of commiseration in the bosom of the loving disciple. When he contemplates him in the stable in Bethlehem, or in the wilderness, hungering, after a fast of forty days, beset by Satan with all his artillery of temptation; or in the mountain, spending the livelong night in prayer and intercession: when he sees him defamed and persecuted by his enemies, while going about doing good, and endeavoring, on his mission of mercy, to bring them to a knowledge of God, and arduously making every day subserve the great work for which he came into the world, enduring fatigue, labor, and suffering-his deep sympathies are excited, and his heart mingles with these toils and self-denials of the Man of Nazareth.

And when he contemplates him in the occurrences of the last few days of his life, in the agony and bloody sweat of the garden, in the iniquitous scenes of the mock-trial, and in the overwhelming cup of suffering he drank while agonizing in death on the cross, bearing a world's sins in his own body on the tree, he ac

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